Decisions

The Director of Community Services submitted a report outlining the role of Marketing Lancashire in relation to the Council’s tourism work.

Marketing Lancashire is a destination management organisation (DMO) that promotes Lancashire as a destination and a place for visitors, occupiers, developers, investors and businesses as well as providing PR, digital marketing and events function for Lancashire LEP. Their funding is received from business and local authority subscriptions, and from central government.

Committee were informed that the government had recently announced an independent review to assess how DMOs across England are funded and structured and how they perform their roles. The outcome of the review would be reported to the DCMS Secretary of State and recommendations will be made. The Council’s Tourism Officer had been involved in the national consultation.

The Council has supported the work of Marketing Lancashire for several years with a subscription of £5,000pa with a service level agreement in place. However, Marketing Lancashire had recently dispensed with the agreement which meant there were now limited ways in which the organisation remained accountable in terms of value for money.

Officers recommended to committee that to ensure the Council gets value for money, new conditions for the delivery of service be negotiated with Marketing Lancashire addressing areas of current concern around tourism and economic development strategy, the identity of Ribble Valley, communication, collaboration on social media and the lack of involvement in marketing campaigns.

RESOLVED THAT COMMITTEE:

Delegate to the Director of Community Services in consultation with the Chair and Vice of committee to draft new conditions for the delivery of service and negotiate with Marketing Lancashire to establish a better working relationship which ensures value for money and effective delivery of co-ordinated tourism and economic development strategy.

The Chief Executive submitted a report informing the Committee of the requirement to review the Council’s Statement of Principles under the Gambling Act 2005 (“Act”) and seek Committee’s authorisation to consult upon the amendment attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

Members were reminded that:

·         It is a legal requirement under the Act that a Council must have a Statement of Principles which is reviewed and published at least every three years.

·         If amendments are made during the three-year period since the Statement of Principles was last legally reviewed, it must still be reviewed again, in line with the 3 yearly requirements.

·         The Council’s current Statement of Principles was first approved and took effect from 31 January 2007, and it has been updated and re-published in 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019. 

·         The Statement of Principles must be published four weeks before it comes into effect.

·         It comes into effect on 31 January 2022 and hence it must be published by 3 January 2022 the Statement will then remain in force until January 2025.

The report noted that there are three licensing objectives under the Gambling Act 2005 namely:

·         Preventing gambling from being a source of, or associated with, crime and disorder.

·         Ensuring gambling is conducted in a fair and open way.

·         Protecting children and other vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

RESOLVED THAT COMMITTEE:

Approved the draft Gambling Statement of Principles detailed in Appendix 1 and 2 of the report and authorised the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to consult upon them between 10 September 2021 and 24 October 2021 and that the results of that consultation be reported back to this committee.

The Chief Executive submitted a report informing the Committee of issues in relation to the possible introduction of a requirement for or support for the use of hybrid or electric vehicles for taxi and private hire use.

Members were reminded that at the meeting of this Committee on 23 March 2021:

·         They considered the possibility of amending the taxi licensing regime to favour the use of electric or hybrid vehicles

·         That officers were requested to consider the approach adopted by other authorities.

Members were also reminded that at the time of the March 2021 meeting, the Ribble Valley taxi fleet included 2 hybrid vehicles and no electric vehicles.

RESOLVED THAT COMMITTEE:

Authorised the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to add the matter as an agenda item for discussion at the next Annual Taxi meeting.